Abstract [en]

Title: Internal Communication Approach – A study of the internal communication-channels of the ICA Administration.

Background: The ICA Administration is in the process of generating an organizational change with the purpose of improving their external communication. The internal communication, on the other hand, has been put aside and is missing guidelines at the present. Since the ICA Administration does not know how the staff uses the internal communication-channels they cannot optimize nor develop them. As the literature shows, it is important to choose the channel that is most appropriate for the type of information that it is meant to communicate. Choosing the wrong channel, or using it wrongly, can bring problems consisting of the staff experiencing to receive less information than needed in their daily work.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore and describe the internal communication between the employees of the ICA Administration from the existing communication-channels and their usage.

Method: Through the initial interviews with the staff, the internal communication-channels of the ICA Administration were determined. The channels were later studied through further interviews where the real communication and the managers’ vision of the communication were presented.

Result: The communication-channels that can be found at the ICA Administration are formal reports, manuals and folders, the Intranet, formal meetings, the email, the telephone, Instant Messenger, face-to-face, and rumors. The study showed that the channels are being used differently. The email for example is believed to be sharing a remarkable excess of information while the telephone on the other hand is hardly being used by the staff in the office. The managers’ vision of how the channels ought to be used is, in large extent, accurate with the employees’ real usage of them. The largest differences between the guidelines consist of channels like the email, the manuals and the formal meetings. These channels are not used, nor do they contribute with information, in the same extent as the managers would want them to.

Conclusion: The conclusion that has been drawn, parting from the analysis and result, is that the staff does not use the channels of the ICA Administration in the same extent as their managers feel they should. To solve this problem, guidelines for the internal communication need to be established as well as an updating of the existing channels.